


the fault of the father is the loss he carries

by orphan_account



Category: Broadchurch
Genre: Angst, Cheating, Epilepsy, F/F, F/M, Friendship/Love, Heavy Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Male-Female Friendship, Mental Health Issues, Service Dogs, Suicide, Trans Male Character, Transphobia
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-01
Updated: 2020-01-01
Packaged: 2021-02-27 15:48:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,653
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22059595
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Heavy amount of hurt with only a bit of comfort for the finest of my friends,
Relationships: Alec Hardy & Ellie Miller, Alec Hardy/Tess Henchard, Daisy Hardy/Chloe Latimer
Comments: 3
Kudos: 26





	the fault of the father is the loss he carries

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Seventeenthcircleofhell](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Seventeenthcircleofhell/gifts).



> i'm so sorry-
> 
> Twitter: @lemonchomps

Ever since he was in primary Alec knew that he was different than other girls. He didn’t like wearing the nice Sunday dresses his mom bought him, he didn’t like the long hair he had, or the bright pink walls of his room. He didn’t like hanging out with the other girls, they always talked about who they liked and what others were doing, comparing themselves to others. He wanted to be like the other guys, playing rugby and getting dirty without their parents causing a fit. 

It was in secondary when he started to do the odd job at the frankly shitty corner store near his equally shitty neighborhood. The first thing he did was save the money in a jar he kept under his mattress. He knew that if his father or mother ever found it, it would be gone by the end of the day. 

He walks down the street and his tenses when he sees his father’s car in the driveway. Everything was always worse for him when he was home, when he wasn’t passed out on the couch with beer bottles piled around him, he was recovering from the alcohol and it was always one wrong step of Alec would get thrown to the ground and kicked with enough force to break ribs. 

His mother wasn’t much better, never around and when she was it was only to give him money for the week before submerging back into the waves of her work. He opens the door as quiet as possible, not doing much even if he tried, the house was a shit hole and the hinges haven’t been oiled or replaced since he was born. The floor dipped and creaked in a near nauseating way, but he learned to live with it, memorized which boards made the least amount of noise. 

Alec sighs in relief when he sees that his father is passed out on the couch, and he nearly glides across the floor as he passes him to reach his room. It’s a Friday which means he’s stuck in the house for at least two days, he tosses his backpack into the corner of the room and slides under the thread-bare blankets on his bed. In his bed he couldn’t see himself, he didn’t have to deal with his breasts or how he had to put up his hair. 

He grits his teeth and shifted his hip as he felt the jar under him. He didn’t know how much he had saved, it had to be a fair amount he had been working for the last few years and the man he worked for didn’t cheat him out of money too often. He glanced towards the curtain that made up his door, and still heard the boorish snores of his. It wasn’t too late for him to leave with his money, use it before his father would inevitably find it. 

He swung his legs out of bed with a groan and crouched on the barely carpeted floor. He shoves his arm under the mattress and pulls the jar out, surprised at the amount that as held in it, he didn’t remember it being this full. He empties his backpack and puts the scattered contents on the cheap desk his mother bought so he could do work without beer staining the paper. He grabs the purse his mom gets him for his birthday one year and shoves the jar and a bottle of water into it before leaving the way he came in. 

For the first time he’s grateful that they live near the boardwalk, he hates the amount of people and the traffic he has to deal with, but now he has a place where he can spend the money. He’s hunched over as he walks near the fence glancing into each shop to see if there’s anything he could get. It’s after fifteen minutes of walking he spots a shop selling clothes that don’t have cheesy memorabilia on them. 

He walks into the shop dragging his hand across the fabric, it’s near the back of the shop that he sees the hoodies. He never asked for one from his parents, knowing they’d shut him down for some obscene reason probably having to do with looking unladylike. He sees a navy one in the corner, one of the bigger sizes and its soft to the touch. He balks at the price but there aren’t any other that he likes, and he sighs as he takes it to the counter. He pays for the hoodie and several other baggy shirts that he likes the look of. He’s very clearly shocked as he realizes that he spent more money than he had ever been given by any of his parents and it hadn’t even taken all of the money he had. 

He holds the frankly quite heavy plastic bag of clothes as he leaves the small shop. Alec continues to walk down the boardwalk glancing at the cheesy memorabilia that was offered by most of the shops. He shrugs as he sees the small shop at the end and turns into the doorway, he looks at the various clothes and statues that were offered. Alec eyes the wall candy longingly, he didn’t get to have sweets often, his parents believing that he needs to stay skinny. 

Alec scowls slightly at the high price of each bag, but he chooses several that he knows he wants. He brings the bags to the counter, shoving the treats into the bottom of the bag of clothes. He leaves and walks back the way he came, praying that his father is still passed out on the couch when he gets in. His shoulders tighten when he sees that his father is no longer on the couch, he rushes back into his room and quickly forces everything he bought into the back of his dresser drawers. 

His father thankfully doesn’t say anything when Alec puts on his new clothes, no comments on how it makes him look like a guy, but it could be that he’s so drunk he can’t see straight. All his mother does is raised he eyebrow before leaving the check on the bar for the week. He goes through school in his new clothes, feeling infinitely better about himself now that the natural curves of his body aren’t visible. The guys stop looking at him with hunger, which he was grateful for, he only really noticed girls in that way if he noticed anyone at all. 

It was at the very beginning of college that he met Alex, she was mean to everyone and pushed most people away. She always wore hoodies and loose pants just like him, and despite himself he was jealous of the jawline and the short hair she sported. It’s in his English class that he first hears the rumors, and he’s confused by them, everyone is talking about how Alex is actually a guy, that she’s pretending to be a girl. That’s when Alec first hears the word, transgender, he doesn’t know what it is but he’s curious and even though he looks high and low for it in all of the books he can’t seem to find what it means. 

He’s not comfortable enough to ask anyone from any of his classes, all of them think he’s weird enough already. He knows that Alex is short and rude to almost everyone that tries to talk to her, but she’s the only one who he’s willing to take a chance with. He sits next to her in class one day, feeling slightly uneasy when Alex glowers at him out of the corner of her eye before turning back to the screen. Alec turns his attention to the front and acts the same the rest of the class, ignoring the bewildered looks that some of the other students throw his way. 

It’s at the end of class as Alex starts shoving her things into her bag that Alec leans back and looks at her fully and plays with his fingers in nervousness. Alex sighs loudly and looks to Alec with an expectant look, “What?”. 

“Uh... I just had a question for you, and I wasn’t sure who to ask and you’re the only person who I could think of that wouldn’t judge me for asking it.” Alex raises her eyebrows in expectation and Alec takes it as a sign to ask the question. 

“I just wondered, if because of the rumors, you knew what uh, transgender means...” He asks in a quiet voice and Alex furrows her eyebrows in confusion. 

“Here you can follow me...” 

“It basically means that, you, when you were born it basically... you don’t feel like the gender you were born with was right. Like you feel that you’re the opposite of what you were given.” 

Suddenly after those two quickly muttered sentences it seemed like everything made sense. Why he didn’t like his long hair, why he hated wearing all the dresses and tight clothes, why he sometimes had the urge to cut off his breasts, to mangle them so badly they couldn’t be saved, and why he hated being called a lady, ma’am, his father’s and mother’s daughter. He froze in place and Alex stopped what she was doing and looked at him worriedly, a frown settling on her face. He came out of his thoughts and smiled slightly in reassurance at Alex, before standing up and rushing out of the room. 

It’s like a switch had been flipped after he found out what the word meant, he was ecstatic that something wasn’t wrong with him, but at the same time he became more closed off. The last thing he wanted was to have the same rumors spread about him that Alex had. Yet he couldn’t help sitting next to said person each day, it was less awkward for the two of them, instead of being surrounded by people they didn’t know. 

Eventually the awkwardness subsided between them and they started talking to each other, Alex was Alec’s first friend that he truly trusted. The two of them liked some of the same things which made things a lot easier than it normally would have been. They had known each other for less than a month before Alex invited him over to her house. Her house was nice unlike his own, the floor was a smooth wood and they had actual food in their fridge. It was like being in a castle whenever he was there, and he did his best to try and not show how much it affected him. 

It was a silent agreement that the two of them wouldn’t talk about their gender, they referred to each other based of their preferences and that was it. They stumbled along the path of their easy-going friendship for two years, before it was time for graduation. Despite his best attempts Alec’s grades just weren’t good enough to get in any university that he wanted, and it was hard to try and figure out a plan that wouldn’t lead to him working in fast-food or retail his entire life. 

In hindsight it was quite easy to figure out that going to the police academy was the best option. He had always been good at figuring problems out and it would be a fresh start, no chance for people to know that he used to be a she, he would be able to train like a man, it was one step toward looking like one. If he was going to be honest with himself those were the some of the best years of his life. 

|| 

It’s right after he graduates from the police academy when he meets Tess, she’s kind to him, which is better than anyone else has ever been. The two of them become friends, he’s tentative, the betrayal and lies he had endured from nearly everyone. It made his trust the hardest thing people could earn; he could count on the one hand how many had. 

The two of them are partners in the same precinct for a year, and friends on his part for only a little less when she first asks him out. The fact that he’s not the same as others comes rushing back faster than the speed of light to his very being. At first, he apologizes and declines the offer, wanting to keep the friendship that he cherished so much. He didn’t know what he did wrong because it’s only a month later before when Tess asks him once again and this time he hesitates as he says no. 

It’s like he’s a bone that a dog had been gnawing on for months, and he was about to break. He knew that if Tess asked once more it would be over for him; he would say yes. Tess waits longer than last time but not by much before she asks again, and just like he thought the dam broke and he accepted. Their friendship slowly fades as their relationship progresses, but Alec doesn’t really care, she actually likes him, enough to spend time with him willingly and like him as more than friends. 

Only a few weeks after she asks him out and after he pays for the two of them and their standing in her living room, Tess kisses him so deeply he knows what she wants. Panic fills his chest, he still hasn’t told Tess about him being trans, he really hasn’t told anyone unless he needed to. He breaks the kiss and looks away, swallowing around the knot in his throat and Tess looks at him worriedly. 

He tells her everything in a stuttered breathy voice and she leans back with her brow furrowed in confusion, but try as he might he cannot see any malice or disgust in her expression. She asks him if he thought she would find that as a problem and he grimace when he pours his emotions out, telling her how everyone treated him like that his entire life. She rubs his back and runs her fingers through his hair soothingly as he leans to the side and rests his head against her shoulder. 

Nearly two years pass as the two of them climb up in the ranks at their precinct and it’s not a grand event when he asks Tess to marry him. They're on their couch sharing a bowl of popcorn while watching a sappy romance movie that Alec can’t remember the name of. At first Tess laughs the question off, but as she looks to the side and sees Alec’s semi-serious expression her face drops and tears pool in her eyes and she repeats yes like a mantra before hugging him tightly. 

They get married in a courthouse, the two of them agreed that the clothes, flowers, and all the planning needed for a wedding was a waste of money on their part. The only people that really know are their coworkers, and it’s only because they showed up with wedding bands at the same time. Nothing eventful happens for the next few years and it starts on a completely normal night, when he’s in bed and Tess walks in looking nervous before she slides under the sheets next to him. 

Alec is ready for her to tell him she wants a divorce, or that she’s not in love with him anymore, he doesn’t expect for her to ask a question, the one question he had never given any thought to no less. She whispers if he’d want to have children and he stops breathing as the thought of having someone to love and cherish besides Tess is ingrained in his mind. It’s a few weeks after she asked when he says that he’d be willing to have children, but he stops in his tracks when he realizes that Tess had assumed, he would be the one bearing the child. 

He feels shocked and it’s as clear as a mountain stream on his face, while he looks at Tess give an apologetic expression and rub his bicep soothingly. Alec doesn’t pull away as he thinks about what Tess wanted, would he be willing to do this for kids, he wanted them but he didn’t know how bad the dysphoria would be. It’s some weeks later when he decides that he wants kids bad enough that he’s willing to push through whatever he does feel, and it’s not long after that when they go to a clinic and he does manage to become pregnant. 

When he starts to show, there’s nothing he can do to hide it, and it hurts that people who had once respected him now see him in a completely different light. The jeers start not to long after, abomination and tranny being the popular ones, it doesn’t faze him though. He has all the family he needs, there’s no reason for him to listen to people who would flip on him like a light switch. 

While in the hospital he swears to himself that this will be his one and only child as the pain peaks, but as he holds his little Tatum, he thinks that having another might not be out of his sights yet. Tatum grows almost too fast for him to keep up, before he knows it Tess and him are sending her off to her first year of primary. It’s another normal night after Tess somehow managed to put Tatum to bed at a reasonable time that he asks if Tess would want another child. 

It doesn’t take as long for him to get pregnant this time, but it takes infinitely longer for it to end, everything that was bad about Tatum's pregnancy is tripled in this round. But at least Tatum is excited to be a big sister. When he gives birth to Daisy everything moves fast again, it no time Daisy is five, then eight, and Tatum is in secondary school now. 

Daisy is eight and a half when she has her first seizure, it nearly gives Alec and Tess a stroke when they see her drop to the floor. She’s rushed to the hospital where they wait for any news for the better part of the day, Tatum having stayed home with Tess's mom watching her. The doctor walks out and calls the two of them back, dread fills Alec’s gut, he knows how doctors usually tell a family a loved one has died, and this is eerily familiar. 

He’s surprised and mildly relieved when the doctor tells them that Daisy has epilepsy, then the true weight of it settles in his chest. Their entire life gets flipped upside down, new expenses and things were now needing to become a regular for them. Eventually he got used to her new condition, trying to find new ways to make it easier for his youngest daughter. He doesn’t complain when on most nights he sleeps alone because Tess opts to sleep on the floor next to Daisy to make sure that nothing happened. It was a few years before he started to eventually let Daisy manage it on her own, but Tess never really let go of the fear she felt for Daisy. 

It was several months into secondary school that he notices something is wrong with Tatum, he had been focused on Daisy for so long that it’s almost as if he’s just seeing Tatum for the first time in nearly three years. He recognizes what Tatum's going through, she’s tired all of the time, everything in her room is a mess, and he can’t remember when the last time she had friends over was. It looked like she was drowning in the deepest ocean and Alec didn’t have a single idea on what to do about it. 

He watches in the background as he starts to see Tatum less and less, he knows his fixation of Tatum is annoying both Tess and Daisy but at that moment he has no cares in the world. He tries to talk to her more often but most of the time she brushes him off with a smile and brisk statement before fleeing to her room. 

It’s on one of the rare days where there isn’t too much work for him to do and he can leave early. When he steps out of the car the first thing that is off to him is that Tatum's car was still in the driveway, she usually stayed after on Tuesdays. He shrugged his shoulders as he unlocks the door and steps inside, cold fills his chest as he listens and finds the entire house eerily quiet, almost un-lived in. He sets his bag and keys on the counter before walking back towards Tatum's room, he’s surprised to find that everything is clean, pristine, like she had spent the entire day trying to make everything as neat as possible. 

He stops breathing when he hears water running quietly from behind the door that holds the bathroom in her room. He walks towards it and raps a few times with a single knuckle, praying that he hears a rushed apology, but it’s completely silent. He turns the knob, not caring if he gets yelled at by Tatum for intruding. He gags when he’s hit with a wave of iron, his nose full of the metallic scent and the panic truly sinks in as he realizes what this means. He looks to the left and sees Tatum sitting clothed in the half-full bathtub the water still trickling from the faucet. His eyes are wide as he takes in the crimson water and the blood flowing in rivulets from the vertical cuts down her forearms. 

He stands stock still for less than a second as he processes what he’s seeing he rushed over and drops to his knees. He pulls out his phone and calls the emergency line, shakily saying his address and what happened before hanging up. He presses down on Tatum's neck to check for any sign of a pulse, releasing a shaky breath when he hears one fluttering but just barely. He stands so quickly he feels dizzy, but not pausing as he quickly grabs every roll of gauze he can find inside their cabinet before wrapping the cuts tightly to try and stop the bleeding. 

He waits on edge until the sirens are heard in the distance, he doesn’t dare stand-up though, if he did Tatum could bleed out. He knew how these things worked, he had seen enough cases where something like this was the difference between life and death. He listens as the medics barge into the house and he yells to signal them where the two of them are, he looks as the door is pushed open and the medics eyes wander quickly as they look over the scene. 

He feels like he’s underwater as he’s gently moved out of the way and watches on as Tatum is rushed through the house on a stretcher and into the ambulance. It’s like he’s just a side character in the story, no one pays attention to him as he watches on in silence. Everything moves in a whirlwind around him, everything passing by at a speed he can barely keep up with. He reaches the hospital and parks haphazardly enough that he knows he’ll probably get towed but that’s the least of his worries. 

Alec walks into the hospital and takes a shaky seat in the chair closest to the door in the waiting room. His leg is immediately bouncing in anxiety and his has his hands clasped together so tightly he can feel his bones straining because of the pressure. He’s sitting there what feels like an eternity before he feels someone touch his shoulder. He looks up and tears well in his eyes when he sees Tess looking down at him with a matching expression. She sits beside him and it’s like all of his emotions caught up with him then, he bites his lip as a sob is caught in the back of his throat and she wraps her arms around him. 

The two of them sit in silence, Alec’s hand clasped in her cool one as chews on his lip. He doesn’t know how long the two of them sit there with their hands held, but he looks up when the door opens and straightens his posture when he sees the doctor standing there. His heart sinks when sees the look of remorse on her face, he knows what she’s going to say but he doesn’t want to believe it. 

When she calls them back and tells them that Tatum had passed away during the operation his world is flipped upside down for the second time in his life. Everything turns into a blur again, he’s half-there as Tess and him plan the funeral and even less present during the funeral. It’s somber, everyone where’s all black and nobody gives a eulogy, no one knew her enough to and those who did... they were too broken to do so. 

After the funeral, Tess seemed to drift away from him, Alec knew he wasn’t helping with him staying so late at the office he usually wouldn’t even come to bed some nights. Daisy changed to, she became more independent, not asking for help from the two of them anymore and for the first time in a long, long time Alec felt alone. He buried himself even deeper into his work, and even if he didn’t mean for it to happen, he was promoted to DI because of how he seemed to endlessly work on cases. 

He worked even harder, slowly isolating himself from everyone until he finally looked up and there was no one there for him. It was then that he realized that if he kept doing what he had done for nearly a year he was going to truly lose everyone. He tried to get his relationships back and he managed to salvage to his and Daisy’s from the rubble, helping her with homework, letting her do what she wanted, helping her anything she needed. 

It was too late for Tess though, he tried everything he could think of, going out on dates again, helping her in work, not staying in the office insanely late. But it seemed that she wanted nothing to do with him, she was detached from him not wanting to be with him anymore. It hurt, seeing that she wanted almost nothing to do with him, because he still loved her with all of his heart. That would never change. 

Then Sandbrook come along, it wears him thin as he tries to figure out what happened the way all the evidence tangles together but none of it is significant enough to lead him anywhere. His relationship with Tess gets stronger the longer they work together on the case, and even if a small part of him wants to not solve the case so he can win Tess back, but he knows it’s not possible. 

The case drags on for months and as the hope dwindles slowly his stress rises quickly and he starts getting random bouts of dizziness and a sharp pain in his chest. He ignores it, the case is more important than anything that he’s feeling, he has to solve it, he’s returned to the destructive habits that made Tess drift away from him in the first place. 

Then he gets the breakthrough he needs to be able to put away Lee, who he suspected from the very beginning was the one who did it. In a last-ditch effort he trusts Tess with the pendant, thinking the trust would maybe be the nail in the coffin for him to get her back. But then he gets the call that Tess had lost the pendant, and his anger takes over him. He feels his heart skip beats as he practically yells at Tess demanding an answer on why she didn’t head straight back to the precinct. 

The last thing he expected was her to scream back at him that she was with Dave and he freezes as his world comes crashing down. He looks down at Tess, his mouth a firm line as he walks away from her, his fingers pressing down on the bridge of his nose as he tries to process what he just found out. He turns back to Tess, anger rushing through him, and he snarls that she’s to go home and she’s most likely going to be suspended from duty if not fired. 

“We’ll talk about this when I get home, Henchard.” He growls before turning away and sighing loudly. 

He wrapped everything up, telling his boss that he would be taking time off after the trial, he had to deal with his wife. He arrived home haggard, with annoyance masking his hurt as he entered their kitchen, seeing Tess sitting at the bar with a half-full wine glass in her hand. He sits beside her, dragging the entire bottle sitting in front of her towards him and taking a deep sip from it. 

“How long have you been cheating on me?” Alec says in a gruff voice. 

“The last six years...” She mutters quietly and Alec leans back and takes several gulps from the bottle at the answer. 

“So... since before even Daisy was diagnosed... tell me Tess, did you ever love me?” He snarls quietly with his eyes screwed shut tightly so that there was no way the tears could fall. 

“I did... but it faded after you started to not spend time with me, Dave and I became friends and it wasn’t long after when it started...” 

He has to stop himself from crossing his arms and legs to cover his chest and hide other parts, he couldn’t help but think that it was because he wasn’t enough of a man. He furrowed his eyebrows and frowned, he glanced to where Daisy’s room was and muttered under his breath. 

“We should get a divorce,” It hurt him to say it and his heart beat in his throat, it was like a stabbing pain on each beat and he kept a constant grimace on his face from pain. His heart twisted when he saw Tess take a sip from her glass and nodded, at this moment he hated Tess with his entire being but he was too tired to yell or scream. He cared about Daisy too much to try, he already knew she wasn’t going to handle it well, the last thing he wanted was for it to be even harder for her. 

Weeks pass and Daisy acts like she isn’t fazed by what’s happening around her but Alec knows better. What he doesn’t expect is for when his boss asks how they lost the pendant for him to take the blame. In the deepest part of him he still cares for Tess, she was his first love and the first person who didn’t seem to care about his past. He’s suspended on the spot, but he doesn’t really care, he hands in his badge and gun and goes home. 

The world seems to love giving him surprises because as he goes home and gunshot like pain goes through his chest and he swerves off the road and into a ditch. His head slams into the steering wheel and he clutches his chest where his heart would be as he lets out a scream that’s only air, a disgusting wheezing sound leaving him. He feels someone grab him and drag him out of the car but his eyes are screwed shut in pain and his teeth grit together from how hard he’s biting down. 

It feels like it’s only a few seconds before the pain subsides and he opens his eyes to find himself in a hospital. He looks around confused and sees a doctor looking at him and he opens his mouth to speak only to find that he can’t. In the span of less than an hour he finds out that he has heart arrhythmia, and that there are several things that he needs to learn in a short amount of time if he wants to live. They recommend that he gets a surgery but he doesn’t even think as he turns it down, he doesn’t deserve to live, he needs to recompense for his failure with Sandbrook. 

He leaves discharges himself from the hospital despite the staff’s adamance that he stays for at least a day, but he doesn’t care about what they say. He leaves in a taxi and gets home at ten, nobody asks where he’s been but there’s a change in Tess, she doesn’t start the usual fight staying silent until he climbs into bed. 

“Why did you take the blame?” 

“I don’t know Tess,” He says curtly before rolling away to the edge of the bed his back to her. 

What he doesn’t expect as well is that the police force mentions how the pendant was lost, and suddenly everyone hates him again. He’s brought back to the days of primary and secondary, and it’s one of the worst feeling in the world. It’s not too big of a decision that after he and Tess get a divorce that he’s going to move away. The only significance in it is that he has to leave Daisy behind, but he believes that she’s old enough to make her own decision on who she wants to stay with. 

It’s surprisingly easy to find somewhere that he can have his old job back, he has an inkling of a memory of somewhere called Broadchurch, but he can’t place it exactly. It’s far away though, somewhere he can start new for the second time in his life, and hopefully this time it works.


End file.
